Locos por Juana: As crazy as they wanna be

Miami band goes wild for cumbia on new album, tour

If guitarist Mark Kondrat had his way, his Latin jam band Locos por Juana would have been named "Locos por la Musica."

Case in point: The moment when frontman Itagui Correa comes bounding onstage, whipping his black dreads like cattle rope, fiercely rapping to a fusion of Afro-Colombian rhythms and reggae beats, this quintet of Colombians feels as jazzed about musicmaking as it does its history.

Stated more simply: "We're crazy about music," the 33-year-old Kondrat says. "We don't do anything except make energetic music that makes us feel good, but we're huge history buffs. Lately, we've been experimenting with cumbia, which is a kind of Latin reggae, and these powerful rhythms from the coast of Colombia. As Colombians, we've heard them our entire lives, but the main difference is that Locos was born in Miami. We don't sound like the coast."

For a dozen years, Kondrat and his four bandmates — songwriter-vocalist Correa, drummer Javier Delgado and trumpeters Jose Gonzalez and Lasim Richards — have been shaking out syncopated rhythms at Miami Beach and Little Havana nightclubs, their folkloric island sounds and brassy, reggae-infused solos sounding like Bob Marley if he ever wailed with a New Orleans jazz band.

That distinct, polyrhythmic sound, Kondrat says, hasn't gone unnoticed by the music industry, winning Locos por Juana a Latin Grammy nod for their 2005 sophomore album, "Musica Pa'l Pueblo," and a Grammy nomination for its 2008 successor, "La Verdad." They also haven't gone unnoticed by Lake Worth's Bamboo Room, where they'll be jamming tonight before kicking off a U.S./Canada tour to promote their new album, "Somos de la Calle." which is due out in June with its first single, "Se Fue la Luz," expected in late April.

"I would hear my parent's cumbia rhythms as a kid in Miami while my brother's listening to The Cure and Pink Floyd and I'd get these crazy ideas." says Kondrat, who formed Locos por Juana with Delgado and Correa while at Miami Sunset Senior High in Kendall. "Miami is a perfect mix of cultures, a very Caribbean-feeling place with salsa and dancehall music from the '90s. Plus, we get a lot of influences from collaborations with other musicians. There isn't a Cuban band here we haven't played with."

Locos por Juana's array of danceable, pan-Latin rhythms, Kondrat adds, creates a jam-band-type atmosphere onstage. "We really like to get creative," he says. "We'll incorporate a kind of jam, and maybe some bass player jumps on and shares the stage. The street philosophy is to get everyone just vibing with each other musically."

The 32-year-old Correa, who grew up listening to his father singing salsa, says Locos por Juana evolved its sound further while touring for "La Verdad," picking up electronica influences from Europe and, most important, strains of hip-hop and reggae back home in Miami. The band's Miami roots are especially strong in "Somos de la Calle."

"We talk about helping out the community, about life in the streets," Correa says. "We even have a reggae song, 'Miami Rockers,' that pays tribute to our city. Miami feels like an island attached to America. I want us to represent all the culture of Miami."